Staying Or Going
by Copycat
Summary: Nikki is going out on a date and Harry reluctantly helps her get ready.


TITLE: Staying Or Going  
AUTHOR: Copycat (Lizzy)  
RATING: T  
CLASSIFICATION: Nikki/Harry, Romance, Angst  
SPOILERS: Specific references to _Body of Work_ and _Safe_.  
SUMMARY: Nikki is going out on a date and Harry reluctantly helps her get ready.  
DISCLAIMER: The BBC owns everything you recognise. And probably some things you don't.

Another "Harry's so obviously in love with her but he has no idea how to handle it"-type story. I just like him that way, I guess...

I know, I know, there's a gate and a camera and all that, but that just didn't work for me, so let's all pretend that on certain nights the gate is open and people can walk right up to Nikki's door.

* * *

Harry stood on the doorstep to Nikki's flat, blowing warm air in between the palms of his cold hands and rubbing them together. He was sure she would be home and he wondered what on earth she could be doing.

When he had asked her what she had planned tonight she had told him it would just be a quiet night in, that she might read the new Dan Brown novel. Even someone with Nikki's questionable taste in literature couldn't be too absorbed in a book like that to hear the doorbell ringing. Three times.

Finally he heard the sound of the lock and then the door opened slightly. Nikki's head appeared in the small opening, her hair covered in a towel. When she saw Harry her apologetic smile was replaced by not entirely pleasant surprise. "Harry? What are you doing here?"

He picked up the plastic bag he had put down as he waited for her to open the door. Bottles of wine clanked together as the bag shook. "I thought I'd save you from another predictable murder plot and we could watch a film." He waited for her to answer, but she didn't, so he went on. "Were you in the bath?"

She smiled and answered his rhetorical question. "Yes."

"So this is a bad time?" He had meant for her to smile and say, "No Harry, of course not. Come on in."

But she didn't. Instead she frowned and said, "It is a bit, yes. I was just getting ready to go out."

Oh. So much for a quiet night in. He smiled. "Right. Going out on a secret date?" He joked.

She shifted uncomfortably behind the door. "Well, yes, actually."

"Oh." Harry nodded. "Right. I'll--let you get on with it, then. Have fun." He had meant to turn around and leave, but his feet didn't seem to want to move.

"Harry?"

His brow furrowed. "Why is it a secret date?"

She sighed and moved to open the door and let him in. "It's not a secret as such," she explained, closing the door behind him. She was wrapped in a fluffy white towel, covered from chest to mid-thigh, and her body was still wet.

Harry stared fixedly at a point behind her head, trying not to think about the fact that underneath the towel she was naked. "So it's not a secret, you just don't want anybody to know?" He smiled at the spot on her wall, fairly sure it too saw the flaw in her logic.

She looked behind her to find out what he was staring at and then she smiled in flattered understanding, pulling the towel up a bit with the hand that wasn't already holding it in place. Harry tried hard not to notice the fact that this brought another few centimetres of naked thigh into view. "No. I just didn't think there was any point mentioning it. It's a first date."

He nodded, still not sure he understood why she had lied, but well enough aware that he would have rather remained ignorant to not force the issue. The less he knew about Nikki's love life, the better. In fact, most of the time he liked to think she didn't have one at all. She _had_ told him as much herself, years ago, when she had been complaining about how she would end up all alone.

And then he had kissed her. He had done it to shut her up, which it had done. But it had also opened a door to something more, a door that he had then very forcefully shut in both their faces when Penny's body had shown up in the morgue. A door Nikki had given absolutely no hint since then that she would like to have reopened.

And clearly she didn't need it open, because she was _dating_. The voice in his head snarled the word, and he felt that it might be mocking him. Perhaps she had been dating for a long time, and Ryan the paramedic had just been one of a long line of men rather than the blip Harry had always seen him as.

If he had known that, he certainly wouldn't have made so many jokes about her love life. Or perhaps he would have made more...

"I'm just going to dry myself off," Nikki told him and then she added with some amusement, "Make yourself at home."

He thought she might prefer if he left. Hell, he probably would have preferred that himself. But he was in the door now, and he would be damned if he was going anywhere before he either got a glimpse of this secret could-be lover or was told directly to leave. And even then he might stick around.

If the guy was a complete tosser he needed to know about it. Oh, he hoped the guy was a complete tosser. He could tease her about her appalling taste in men, then. Obviously.

She returned, now wearing a dark blue silk kimono tied securely at the front. It wasn't any longer than the towel, but at least there was no risk of it suddenly falling off her. She was drying her hair with a towel. "Did you want anything else, Harry?"

"Well," he told her, rubbing his hands together enthusiastically. "I thought, since I'm here, I might as well help you get ready for your date. Make sure you're prepared."

She laughed. "I'm sure that'll be very helpful."

He looked around, wondering what the hell women did to get ready for dates. He assumed some amount of time spent in front of the mirror was involved. There was a dress, of sorts, draped over the back of the couch. It was made from a flimsy red material, and even if it hadn't been practically see-through there wouldn't have been enough fabric to cover her up. "Is this what you're wearing?" He asked sceptically.

"Yes," she said, suddenly insecure. "Is there something wrong with it?"

He picked it up and tried to picture her in it, but then stopped quickly. "Well, no. If you want him to think you're fine with skipping dessert and heading straight for the nearest hotel it's _perfect_."

Nikki laughed. "Maybe I am fine with that," she suggested.

He sighed dramatically. "What did I tell you about not giving up the goodies?"

"The thing is, Harry, you never told me what 'the goodies' are, so it wasn't very useful."

He knew that she was teasing him, but the fact that she wasn't at all uncomfortable talking about this didn't make him any less so. He shook his head. "If you don't even know what they are, you certainly shouldn't be giving them away."

"Why? Are they valuable?" She asked, feigning confusion.

"Well, no, probably not, what with inflation and everything."

She laughed loudly. "I really think it's more a question of supply and demand, Harry."

He grimaced, feeling the metaphor had probably got out of hand by now. She didn't often answer back like this and he wasn't entirely sure he liked this new provocative Nikki. At least not when she was planning to go out with another man wearing practically nothing at all.

No. Wait. Not _another_ man. As in, as opposed to someone else, who could possibly be himself. Just, she shouldn't dress like that. It might get her into trouble. He walked into her kitchen and quickly located the corkscrew and two wine glasses.

Nikki watched in silence as he opened one of the bottles he had brought with him and poured them each a glass. When he handed hers to her she accepted it, frowning slightly as he downed his in one go and sat down on the couch.

She took a small sip of her own glass and watched him pour a second glass for himself. "Is there something the matter, Harry? Do you want me to cancel my date?"

His head shot up. The look on her face made him realise that she made the offer because she was worried about him, not because she thought he might just prefer it that she not... date. "No, of course not. I'm fine. I was just bored and I thought we could watch a film, is all."

She sat down next to him, clearly not convinced.

He looked down at where her naked leg was touching his trousers. He felt exactly the way he did when he was fourteen and Annie Wendell had come round his house to watch _Benny Hill_. He had wanted to kiss her so badly, but he had been fairly sure that if he had tried to, she would have slapped him.

Not that he thought Nikki would slap him if he kissed her. She hadn't before. It would be more of a metaphorical hand imprint on his cheek when she pushed him away gently and told him he had missed that particular train.

She would be nice about it, of course, but that would just make it sting even worse. And work tomorrow would be awful. "You do realise it's a work night, don't you?" He asked.

She watched with some apprehension as he poured his third glass of wine in ten minutes. "Yes. Do you?"

"Of course." He clapped his hands on his thighs and stood up abruptly. He needed to put some distance between himself and her skin and that sweetly concerned look on her face. "Now, don't you have a date to get ready for? Or are you just going to go out like that? The effect will probably the roughly the same as the dress," he conceded.

She slapped him. Playfully. "I'm going to go dry my hair. Don't drink the rest of that wine while I'm away."

She left the room and moments later he heard the sound of the blow-dryer. Clearly she hadn't bothered to close the door to the bathroom. He gulped down his wine, poured another glass and then looked at the nearly empty bottle in surprise.

She was probably right. Why did he suddenly feel so nervous, anyway? What did he think was going to happen?

Well, he _knew_ what was going to happen. Nikki was going out on a date, and judging by what she planned to wear, she had every intention of inviting the guy in for coffee after. And anything else she might think to serve for breakfast.

This was ridiculous. He knew she wasn't sitting at home waiting for him to make some declaration of love or anything. That had been perfectly clear from the CCTV footage of her and Ryan. But Ryan had gone, and Harry had sort of assumed that was it.

He got up and walked to the open door of her bathroom. Leaning against the door frame he watched as she skilfully did up her hair in some elaborate do. "That looks complicated."

Their eyes met in the mirror and she smiled. "It is. Very," she joked.

He smiled back. He wanted to say something, but his brain seemed to be stuck.

She was applying foundation now, her eyes travelling to his reflection every now and again and then back to what she was doing. Clearly she was waiting for him to say something.

To explain, probably.

He wanted to tell her to stay home. To not go out on a date with anyone ever again. He thought of the dress, slung over the back of the couch. Join a convent, perhaps.

She was putting on eye-liner now and no longer looking at him, completely absorbed by the task. To Harry it looked like one of those pointless, possibly painful, things women did because they thought it made them more attractive to men.

He felt stupid. Stupid and ridiculously and unreasonably jealous. The thought of Nikki with another man always made him feel this way, and normally he would tell himself it was just a possessive streak in him that made him unwilling to share his best friend.

Normally he would also ignore the voice in his head that laughed cruelly and called him a liar.

Tonight, however, that voice had had three glasses of wine in ten minutes and now it was watching Nikki make herself look beautiful for someone else's benefit and it was booming louder than ever.

"You're an idiot, man. You're jealous and you want her all to yourself. Because you're _in love with her_," the voice sneered insistently.

He coughed and she jumped in surprise, nearly smudging the mascara she was carefully applying.

"What is it?" She asked.

He shook his head. "Sorry."

She watched him a moment longer, clearly debating on whether or not to push him to say something, but then continued putting on mascara.

The voice wasn't actually telling him anything he didn't already know, only something he had never openly acknowledged to himself.

It really did have very poor timing.

She was putting the finishing touches to her make-up now, checking her eyes and wiping off a stray bit of lipstick with a finger. She caught his eye in the mirror and looked at him questioningly, clearly asking for his approval.

He smiled and nodded and hoped she couldn't tell how reluctantly he was doing it.

She smiled back, evidently satisfied by his effort, and then shooed him out. "Now go away, I need to get dressed."

"But your dress is out there," he told her, confused.

She rolled her eyes at him. "Yes, well, I'm not wearing that _now_, am I?"

He went back to the living room, smugly eyeing the skimpy red dress. Annie Wendell had been wearing a red t-shirt.

"Wait a minute," he said suddenly, as he remembered. "I _did_ kiss her."

"Sorry?" She poked her head out through the bedroom door.

"Annie Wendell. I _did_ kiss her, and she didn't slap me at all. Actually, she told me it was about time, because she had to be home in ten minutes."

Nikki laughed, having absolutely no clue what he was talking about. "Oh. That's... good. Harry, are you quite _sure_ there's nothing wrong?"

He shrugged, slightly uplifted by the memory that his first romantic endeavour hadn't been a complete failure after all. "What time is your date picking you up?" He realised he still didn't know the man's name.

She looked at the clock on the wall. "He'll be here in about ten minutes."

The irony might be lost on her, but it wasn't on Harry.

When their eyes met again her expression changed. He knew she was seeing something in his eyes that he wasn't entirely sure he wanted her to see. She looked at him like that, sometimes, when he didn't quite manage to pull off an affectionate comment as joking.

Like she was looking for, or expecting, something more.

"You need to get dressed then." He smiled, shaking off whatever it was she wanted to see. "What's the poor guy going to think if he gets here and you're still in your underwear and I'm sitting here with your dress for company?"

She looked at the dress and then back at him. "Who says I'm wearing any underwear?"

He laughed to hide his surprise. Too loudly, probably.

She shook her head. "Give me the dress. I don't want him to see it if he's not seeing me in it."

He picked it up somewhat gingerly and brought it over to her, only just managing to resist the temptation to peek around the door to see if she was joking about the underwear.

She noticed the involuntary motion and laughed. There was the sound of elastic snapping against skin. "Bra," she told him. Then a similar sound, more muffled. "Panties."

Her head disappeared but she had left the door slightly ajar and he could hear the sound of her moving around the bedroom as she finished getting dressed.

"Will you do me up, please?" She called out suddenly.

"What?"

"The zip. Do you mind?"

"Sure. Is it safe to come in?"

"It's my bedroom, Harry," she said, amused. "What's going to happen?"

He grinned to himself but said nothing. When he pushed open the door she was standing by the bed, looking at four different outfits spread over it.

She was wearing a black dress that wasn't the least bit transparent, Harry noted with satisfaction. It was a bit short, maybe, but compared to what she had been planning to go out in it was positively demure.

She turned her back to him and waved her hand for him to come closer. The long zip in the back stretched from the edge of her red panties and ended just above the fastening of her matching bra.

He would have to touch her, there was no getting around that. He reached out a hand to pull up the slider but then hesitated.

"Is something wrong?" She asked. "It's not broken, is it?"

She was already looking at the clothes spread out on her bed, contemplating her alternatives. When she moved to take a step forward, away from him and toward the bed, he grabbed hold of the dress near the bottom of the zip to hold her in place.

"No, it's fine," he told her.

She froze and he saw goosebumps forming on her back when his fingers brushed against her naked skin.

He tugged lightly on the dress to make her step closer to him and she did. He could see the loose hairs at the back of her neck moving as he breathed in and out.

She shivered slightly. "Go on then," she told him. Her voice sounded strangely hushed.

He let go of the dress, moving his hand to rest on her hip instead, holding her in place as he reached out his other hand and took the slider.

He pulled it up slowly, carefully, just as reluctant to let go now that he _was_ touching her as he had been to make contact in the first place.

When the slider could go no no further he let go of it and moved to adjust the curving neckline of her dress instead. She didn't object to the pointless action but seemed to shift almost imperceptibly closer to him.

He ran two fingers lightly along the edge of her dress, from one shoulder to the other, mesmerised by the feel of her skin. Her shoulders sagged as she let out a slow breath.

His fingers continued their journey up her neck and she tilted her head to the other side. He smiled.

Just then, the doorbell rang.

She stiffened but didn't move.

He stroked her back one last time and then turned her around by the shoulders. "Your date is here," he told her.

She looked up at him. "Is he?"

Her eyes were boring into him and his breath caught. His hands were moving, of their own volition he was sure, to cradle her neck. "You should probably get the door," he told her, his hands not letting go.

"Probably," she agreed, licking her lips.

The doorbell rang again, more insistently this time.

"Bit keen, isn't he?" Harry asked.

She smiled. "That's what I liked about him."

"You have horrible taste in men," he told her.

She laughed softly. "I really really do."

His thumbs were stroking her cheeks now and he wondered how that had happened. Then he felt her hands on his chest, playing with the top button of his shirt, and it stopped mattering.

She was biting her lip and staring intently at the greyish piece of plastic. Finally she sighed and looked up at him. "He's a nice guy, Harry," she told him.

He smiled, not sure what her point was.

"And he obviously likes me," she went on.

He brushed a stray bit of hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear. "So what's wrong with him then?" He joked.

She rolled her eyes at him and pulled away. "Yes, clearly there must be something wrong with him if he wants to go out with _me_," she said sarcastically.

His entire body protested at the break of contact and he took an involuntary step forward. "Don't go," he blurted out. He had meant "Don't walk away from me, I'm not done touching you just yet," but clearly that wasn't how she interpreted it.

Her eyes widened in surprise. "Why not?" She asked.

"What?" He was scared now, worried that he had said too much.

"I don't want to play this game any more, Harry. Either give me a reason to stay or let me go."

He realised she wasn't just talking about the date.

He shook his head in resignation. He didn't know the words she wanted to hear. He didn't know how to say them out loud.

She nodded, her face hardening slightly, and then she picked up her handbag from the dresser and walked past him to the door.

The doorbell rang for the third time and there was a loud knock as well.

He reached out for her, grabbing her arm before she made it out of the bedroom. "Please."

She stopped. When she turned to look at him there was pain in her eyes.

"Please," he repeated.

She shook her head and made to walk on. He took two longs steps and caught up with her in the doorway, trapping her between his arms and the door frame. Not stopping to think what he was doing, he leaned down and kissed her roughly on the mouth.

She responded immediately, her arms snaking around his neck, pulling him closer, her mouth opening to him.

He groaned as she deepened the kiss and he could feel her smiling against his lips, their tongues entangled.

When he finally pulled away they were both gasping for breath. He rested his forehead against hers, steadying himself. "Stay," he told her.

She smiled, wiping at the lipstick around his lips with her thumb. "Okay," she agreed before kissing him again.

_End_


End file.
